Time Has Brought Your Heart to Me
by Ladybug-Jojo
Summary: "Satisfied?" He asks as he slides up behind me slipping an arm around my waist and letting me lean back into his hard chest." How everything leads two people that clearly belong together back to each other.


_Okay here we go a try of something I was inspired to write by 507..._

_I don't own the good wife._

* * *

**Time Has Brought Your Heart to Me**

I smile as I look out over the skyline, the water glittering in the setting sun, the statue of liberty on the horizon. I love this office building, a lot really, and the moment we saw these offices I insisted, it had to be these ones. They topped the others we had looked at for months now.

"Satisfied?" He asks as he slid up behind me, slipping an arm around my waist and letting me lean back into his hard chest.

"You know I am... it is beautiful. I like these ones more than those in LA, and in Miami, and possibly even more than those back in Chicago." I tell him as I tilt my head so he can place a light kiss on my neck, one that has me shivering.

"Good... then... we will just need to find similar ones in DC... when we open there..." He mumbles, making me laugh.

"That might be hard..." I answer, and he laughs as well.

"Well hard but not impossible..." He tells me, the motto we seem to have adapted over the years. After all if we stood back from hard we wouldn't be here.

* * *

_I have no idea if he will help me, but I hope he will. I know he hates me, I know he will have no reason to help me. I would have a week ago rather done anything but ask for his help. But that was before... that was before there were naked photos of my daughter splattered all over the medias, that was before it got followed up with videos of myself. Videos of me having sex, of me in my bedroom having sex or taking off my clothes, followed by more videos of Grace taking off her clothes. Peter had tried to step in, had gone Rambo but all it was resulted in was that there was now a video featuring "__**the Florrick's sexual escapades**__," like it was called. _

_One showing the old video of him and Amber, in addition to some of me and him, and me naked and Grace naked. It was horrible, and journalists kept following me and trying to get comments. Grace was terrified. Her and Zach had told me where it had started and of course I had sued the child that started and his family. Of course he was arrested for pornography but the scandal was already rolling and no way of stopping it. Cary was good, he tried to be kind and supportive but it didn't make me feel any better. Peter I couldn't even stand to be close to as seeing the hooker stuff broadcast again brought back old wounds, wounds I thought were healed but never were. After all I now saw that I still didn't trust him. I needed to get away. And with journalists following me and my name everywhere I didn't know how to. _

_Why I found myself here... waiting for Cary to finish the settlement with "him" ready to beg him to help me. To ask for forgiveness and plead my case. I wanted to curl up somewhere alone, where I didn't have to fear some camera trying to snap a photo of my daughters cleavage or of mine. _

_Cary left the room and I slipped in. He was packing up his files and shaking hand with his client. It felt odd seeing him here in my office. I don't think I will ever get used to that. He must have felt me looking as he turned to face me, catching my gaze. For a few seconds I fear he will walk away, that he will turn his back like he usually does these days. So his sigh and the fact that he stays make me let out one of my own. _

_My hands are trembling and I know I am shaking a little. Asking him this is the biggest thing I will ever have to. I have the words made up in my mind but they don't seem to come out. In the end only two words slip out, and surely not the ones I planned._

"_Help me..." I whisper. I want to say more, I want to explain what I mean, to beg, but I can't seem to. He stares at me for a few seconds then nods slowly._

"_Are you suing?" He asks and I flinch, he thinks that is what I need? A lawyer? Well of course he would think it was that, what else have I ever given him grounds to think it could be. It is not like I ever before asked him to take me away, to shield me from all the bad, but Grace's tears and the videos are so clear in my mind. The flashes of the cameras I can almost see in front of my inner eye._

_I nod slowly._

"_I am... it is... not... that...please, if you... don't want to do it for me, do it for Grace... She is innocent in all of this. She is just a child... and she is crying all the time... and I have no idea anymore what I can do to help her." I whisper, twisting my hands, and his eyes widen slowly and he sighs. For seconds maybe minutes we stare at each other, before he nods._

"_Go home Alicia... I will see what I can do... tell Cary you won't be in for a the two next weeks maybe more..." he tells me, before he gets up and leaves. I am unsure, scared and nervous. Does it mean he will get me out of this nightmare, or what does it mean? I sigh, I need to trust that deep under everything he still cares a little bit about me and he did mean he will try to help me. So I go to Cary and tell him that, he understands. I bring files home with me. And I manage to fight my way through journalists to my car and parking the car at home make my way through them once more so I get to the door. Grace is there, she is shaking and crying once more, admitting she got a text with another newly scooped video. She hasn't been to school since it broke out, she studies at home trying to keep up. I mean how could I send her to school with this going on. I am glad Zach left for college with this mess going on._

_I am woken in the middle of the night by a phone call. One I sleepily answer._

"_Pack a suitcase for your both, and be done in an hour... bring your passports" He tells me, making me stiffen up, I try to say something but he has already hung up. So there I am waking Grace in the middle of the night and telling her to pack her school books and some clothes. I have no idea what to pack since he said nothing about where we are going. So different things get thrown into the bag. And he really does call me an hour later, telling me to get down there. Grace is scared and uncomfortable. But he has been smart, the rain is pouring down and no journalist seem to have camped out in the rain at 3 am. He gets out to toss the two suitcases into the back of his car, while Grace and I slip inside. He doesn't say anything as he starts the car, and starts to drive it. _

"_Mom where are we going?" Grace asks me and I look over at him, hoping for an answer just like my daughter._

"_Open the glove compartment..." He tells me and I follow his instruction, finding a big brown envelope in there, that I pull out. _

"_There are some Euros it is not a lot but the best I could get with so little time... There are two plane tickets, for you both to Florence with layover in New York and once again in Paris. Use the cash to rent a car and go to the hotel outside of the city I have reserved for you. I guess you can use your cards for the rest as I doubt anyone cares enough to track them." He tells me and I gasp. He had really realized how much I needed to get away from the spot light, from the headlines and the journalists and cameras. _

"_We are going to Italy?" Grace asks confused._

"_Yes... your mother and you will go there for a little while until the medias find a new scandal." He answers for me, while at the same time he parks at the airport and gets out of the car. As he takes out our luggage, I finally realize he has helped me get away but he is not doing more. He is not coming with me. _

"_You are not coming with us..." I whisper in shock and his head snaps up. He looks right at me. _

"_No I am not..." He hands me a laptop case and I stare at it, I hadn't even thought to bring my own._

"_Here so you can keep up work while away... I will email you when the press moves on to the new big thing, it won't be long. Maybe wear sunglasses or something while overseas, though I doubt they will keep it going with the same sex tapes as long as we seem to." He answers and I nod. I feel sad, I don't know what I had thought but I had surely not thought he would help me just get away but not come with me. I know it is foolish, especially with how we have been on such bad terms. How he hates me and how I have hated him. And yet standing here in the airport in the rain I feel hollow._

_I can't protest or ask him to come with me it wouldn't work like that. I know that. So I nod slowly._

"_Thank you for the help, Mr. Gardner..." Grace who is suddenly standing beside me tells him and he nods. _

"_You are welcome..." His eyes catches mine before he starts to turn around, intending to leave._

"_Will..." His name slips over my lips in a soft plea, and he looks at me quickly._

"_Thank you..." I whisper, unable to say all the other things running through my head. He nods and as he gets into the car and drives away Grace and I drag out luggage into the airport to check in._

* * *

"What are you thinking of?" He asks me as he nibbles on my ear, almost like he knows he has caught me in a memory. How he always seems to know my mind so well will never cease to amaze me. It is both thrilling and terrifying. But I now know I wouldn't have it any other way.

"The time in Italy..." I answer, without anything else added. His arms tighten around me, and I can feel his deep sigh on my neck.

* * *

_In the last plane, the one from Paris to Florence I finally look at the hotel reservation. It is outside Florence, probably in case someone in the city, tourists or someone should recognize me after all. He has made it under his name, and as I stare at the name I shiver a little. I will there be allowed to have another name one sex scandals, hookers and corruption are not connected to. While at the New York layover I was even more grateful I had gotten out of Chicago and was on the way out of US. On the front page of the morning paper as well as the news stations they played the latest scandal, another one connected to Peter and my name one about a fraudulent election and stuffed voters boxes. _

_To not talk about the rumors they talked about his staff covering it up, of it showing a start of his corrupt office that had also landed me Chum Hum as a client. Also how he had fired his ethical adviser and then hired her back. His pregnant adviser, that they just had to add a little speculation of if he was the father to her child. I threw the paper away and made sure Grace didn't see more. The tears in her eyes already as she hugged me told me more than enough. Will had helped us there even more, getting me out before this broke and giving me a chance to not have my name follow me. _

* * *

"I see..." He mumbles, and draws his arms back from me, like always it is one of the tenser subjects between us. I don't let him get away though but turn around and wrap my arms around his waist while I place my head on his shoulder hugging him and cuddling into him. His arms closes around me once again drawing me just a little tighter against him.

"I love you..." I mumble softly, I don't think I will ever get tired of telling him that. Or feeling how much his whole body always seem to relax when hearing those words whispered.

"I love you too..." He breaths out softly against my hair. And I realize he is not the only one those three words relax, they also work on me.

"Thank you..." I mumble into his shoulder and he pulls a little back and stares at me.

"For what?" I shrug my shoulders as response.

"Everything..."

* * *

_I got an email from Owen once in a while, Will seems to have contacted him and told him how I left. I also get tons of emails from Peter, and Eli... they want to explain, but I have no desire to hear the explanations. I just want peace. And Italy is giving me peace. I work on cases, and email Cary the notes. I help Grace study and keep up. I know her school will be furious that she is gone this long and she does as well. But rather that than have her crying every day over mocking and seeing all the slandering of our family once more, of having to see her tears due to more naked photos of her all over the medias this is better. Each time I open my inbox I do hope to find an email from Will. Something that never happens. It is not that I hope to find one that allows me to return home it is that I wish he would just write anything, or something. But he never does. In the end I am the one to send him one. A simple one with an attachment of a picture I took over here. And the words of that it is beautiful over here, European Spring. _

_He answers it and says he is glad I think so. And that is how it starts, light emailing. Light emailing turned into deeper stuff, after all it seems we are better at talking about deeper stuff when we do it like this than in person. That it is easier to open up like this. Still we never talk about the scandal and how it is still going. _

* * *

"That is a lot of thank you..." He teases me, and I can't help but to giggle and hug him a big tighter.

"Well it is the truth. Without you I would be somewhere very different today... somewhere I am pretty sure I would hate." I admit softly, and he nods slowly. He knows that, we both do and have probably always known that. Yet I should tell him more often just how glad I am to have him in my life and how much he really means to me. How I will never let him down _again_. That he is all I want. Well that would be a lie though, I also need and want my kids, and my brother and mother. But work and the law and a life without him. No, I don't want that. Been there done that, and it is terrible and lonely and no fun.

* * *

_Everything does come to an end though and my stay in Italy did too. However Grace and I both returned to the states stronger and harder. Walking into work the first day back I shocked everyone except Cary who knew I was returning. I was returning and I was ready to face the world. The scandal was still rolling but a new one had surfaced, too, making Peter's impeachment less interesting. Of course the moment I was back on American soil Eli tried to ambush me, something I turned down. Instead I contacted the second best divorce lawyer in town. The best was David Lee but there was no chance I would use him, though I did fear Peter would. I started working on cases again and going to court, Grace was going back to school. I hadn't seen Will since I came back but we still mailed. The first time I saw him we almost bumped into each other in the hallway of the court building. His arm shooting out and catching me from falling flat on my butt. I smiled and thanked him, and he nodded and told me I looked good. We both had to rush off again because of cases. But when I emailed him later I did mention I was happy to have finally run into him in person. _

_Weeks passed and we surprisingly didn't have cases against each other. However one night when I was working late there was a knock on my office door and I looked up to see Will standing there. _

_I was surprised, shocked actually. He looked serious though, and held up a document folder. _

"_I think you owe me a favor, I am here because I need to cash in on that one..." He sighed. My eyes widened in surprise. I do owe him one I probably owe him many to be fair. So I nod and invite him into my office._

"_What can I help you with?" I want to know._

"_Jeffery Grant! He is finally going to a murder trial. I have worked on it for months now, close to half a year. And he looks guilty, his DNA was under the victim's fingernails. He keeps insisting he is innocent and he has never met her. Kalinda thinks he did it, and Diane thinks he did something. But I believe him. I think he is innocent, but it won't help. We got nothing we have been over everything. I need a pair of new eyes. And you, well you know them, his father, and Jeffery..." He tells me and I stare at him in shock. Of all the things he could have come to ask this I didn't expect. But I owe it to him, he is right there, so I nod and motion for him to take a seat on my couch. He does and hands me the file. That is the start of many late nights spend in my office looking at the file. Going over everything together. I even joined him in talking with Jeff. We shouldn't do it, but I signed on as co-counsel, the only way we could get away with it. I know Carey was furious at what I did, and Diane wasn't happy with Will for it either, but I enjoyed working side by side with him again, and Cary at least seemed understanding. In the end we agreed to co-operate with his defense during the trial conflicts of interests be damned. I know more than a few were surprised by it, but neither of us really cared._

_The day of the closing arguments, that Will gave was also the day I signed my divorce papers to Peter and took off the rings from him. Alicia Cavanaugh, I corrected the judge when she addressed me, making more than one glance over at me. I was as relieved as Will when we won and Jeff was freed, that we had created enough reasonable doubt that he couldn't be convicted. I hugged both Jeff and Will. It was our closest contact in over a year, and I was fast to ask him if he wanted to have dinner to celebrate the win. It felt easier now, lighter somehow, as we walked to a close by sushi restaurant. We talked and laughed our way through the dinner, all our emails have done good in that area, less baggage there. As easy as dinner was going back to his place where we fumbled with clothes until we fell down on his bed. Afterwards when we lay in each other's arms I was the one to voice that I knew it was more this time. That I knew he needed it to be more and I did too, that I loved him and only him, though I spend such a long time running. The rest of the night was spend confirming that, that we now finally had all the time in the world together. _

* * *

"When will Cary and Diane be here? We did agree to meet at 6 o'clock right?" I ask him, as I pull back enough that I can reach up and give him a soft kiss on the lips. One he gladly returns before pulling back.

"Yes we did... they should be here any minute. Diane did say the plane had landed a bit later, when she texted how they had touched ground. But don't worry we won't miss the restaurant reservation. Also Kurt and Kalinda will both be joining us." He offers, making me smile. That is good news. And it is sort of needed. There are many that are a part of this, and Kalinda was the one first raising the idea after all.

* * *

_I still can't believe we are toasting to this, it is not something I would have expected when Will kicked me and Cary and the others out almost one and a half year ago. And yet we are merging, at least sort of. We had gone through some changes and breakups first within our individual firms. Carey had not been happy with me and Cary as managing partners and tried to vote me out. So Carey had gotten bought out and there by putting us in a bad position once again. One Hayden had pointed out to us. Kalinda had voiced to Cary that Diane and Will were getting rid of David Lee, once and for all tired of his tendencies to bribe and fake stuff. He wasn't the only one they were getting rid of, Howard Lymann was kicked too, and to my own personal pleasure Anthony also got kicked. I wondered if Will was the one at play there, though he hadn't mentioned anything to me at home. So when I did bring up the subject we finally discussed the firm businesses. Something we otherwise tried to stay clear off as much as possible. But he admitted what was going on and I told him about our troubles. _

_I think it was Kalinda that voiced the possibility to Cary of merging, of how we would all benefit way more from it. I guess she said it to Cary because he would be the one hardest to convince. So I was relieved when he told me he had concluded he wanted that. A decision Hayden supported greatly as it would get us in way better shape. Making the clients open to it was harder, and to approach Will and Diane with it even worse. After all I couldn't really seduce Will into saying yes as it was a business decision, not that I wanted to even think of doing that. However one they both agreed in the end, maybe also as they needed the extra big clients as they were in the process of opening the L.A branch. _

_So yeah, here we were toasting to Lockhart, Argos, Cavanaugh and Gardner and the plan of the biggest law firm in the country. A plan I now knew had been made by Will when he was still hurting from me, one I would now help him bring to reality with all the hard work it took. Just like all the hard work over the years it had taken us to be here and together._

* * *

"Wow, we leave you two alone in New York and you are already opening us to law suits for sexualized work environment." Cary's voice sounds and we jump apart, looking over where Diane, Kurt, Cary and Kalinda are getting off the elevator.

"So you finally made it..." I answer him as we start to walk over to meet them. We meet in the middle where a single table is already set with glasses filled with champagne.

"Sure, the plane was delayed because of bad weather out of Chicago. It really is a good view we have up here..." Cary answers.

"Yes, we were lucky there." Diane agrees.

"We saw the sign downstairs, we took the chance of checking out the lower floor too. We seem to need a new one there and up here as well, Alicia." Cary tells me, and I feel confused for a second until I feel a hand getting laced with mine, and I can't help but smile.

"Why what is wrong with it?" I ask Cary.

"They forgot your name..." Kalinda supports, raising an eyebrow at me, and something in her gaze tells me she is already onto what is going on. Unlike Cary, Diane or Kurt.

"Well actually they didn't..." I answer, with a smile playing on my lips. My words have all their mouths drop open, though Kalinda is only smirking at me, at us.

I hold my hand up so they can see it, see the two bands resting there already.

"As of four o'clock today I was no longer Cavanaugh and it is technically the other branches that need new signs." I answer.

"Yeah I hope they will be up when we return in two weeks delayed a bit, as I am whisking her away to Rome and Italy tomorrow afternoon, this time we are going together..." My better half adds. The last part is well known among of us all: -That if I hadn't asked him for help back when, and he hadn't cared deeply enough about me to understand how badly i needed it, we all wouldn't be here, like this now.

The next moment we are both getting hugged and wished congratulations. And when we toast to our newest suite of offices and new branch in New York, we also toast to my marriage with the words of to Lockhart, Argos and Gardner. And later on when we share dinner at a restaurant all together, I am glad that my new husband knows me that well that he has also paid for plane tickets so it is not only our closest friends and co-workers there, but also my kids and my mother and my brother and his own sisters and their families. They are all their, celebrating with us. Toasting to our world class law firm and my marriage to William Paul Gardner.

* * *

_Okay please let me know what you think... I know it is probably the easier and a way lighter version of what will and could happen. but i was inspired to i wrote it... also thanks to Terri who chatting with about some ideas helped me there. and steffi for betaing. _

_Also i already have the hard ones in work with my other story so... _


End file.
